What’s up at 4BC? That’s the big question a lot of people, including many who work at the station, are asking.
A former employee (one of several who have contacted me over the past week) suggested that the station’s results in Survey 8 this year — 4.4pc of total audience aged 10+ and a dismal 3.3pc in the Breakfast shift — represent a record low.
I don’t have access to the full historical stats, but it’s the lowest overall rating for 4BC that I can recall, and two industry veterans told me they can’t remember a worse result.
(I found a 4.6pc overall rating in 2015, just a year after GfK took over the survey from McNair, but the Breakfast figure was 6.1.)
Although 4BC is rating worse than it did when it was fully relayed from Sydney, the current owners, Nine Radio, continue to insist the station will remain live and local.
However, it’s worth nothing that it will be substantially less local over the Christmas break this year that it has been in the past couple of years. The Mornings and Afternoon shows, which were kept going with fill-in hosts in previous years, will soon be on relay from Sydney. The Weekend show switched from local to networked a few months ago and seems unlikely to return.
I’m a long-time listener — it was my father’s station of choice — and a former employee, and this decline hurts me because I genuinely want 4BC to be competitive again.
So, how and why they are the Nine brains trust getting things so wrong?
Scoring 3.3 in Breakfast can’t just be put down to a “bad book” as they say in the business when there’s a blip in the ratings results, it’s part of a downward trajectory and, let’s face it, a downright embarrassment.
I’m sure there were some who will continue to push the “station lost it way” narrative, blaming the former Breakfast team of Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine.
That would be uncharitable to them, considering they kicked a few ratings goals during their short tenure and, had things been done differently, may have continued to do so.
Besides, they’re gone, everybody knows they are gone, and the numbers are still going down.
The station lost the LGM fans but picked up no new audience, or returning old audience. Maybe all the latter have died (4BC does skew very old, and that’s one of the challenges).
Identifying the problem is not rocket science. There can be only two possible reasons for such a slide in listener support:
There is no longer any broad public appetite for commercial talkback radio, or
There is, but 4BC is doing it wrong.
Assuming there still is a potential audience for commercial talk in Brisbane, why aren’t those people listening to 4BC? It must be:
They don’t like the presenters
They don’t like the content
Both of the above.
Somebody else is doing it better.
Starting from point 4, there’s an argument that the audience who might be interested in talk are getting their fill from the FM music stations which all have strong local talent talking about topical and relevant issues.
And then there are the podcasters. Maybe the former talk junkies now prefer a dose of true crime from Casefile, light banter from the hard-to-hate Hamish & Andy, news from Schwartz Media’s 7am, Conversations from the ABC, targetted, topical content from Mamamia Out Loud, or one of hundreds of other options.
Assuming talk radio is not dead (and it isn’t in other markets), what does 4BC need to make a go of what it’s got?
Does host Peter Fegan just need some clear air and more promotion — TV spots, bus backs and the like? Is there money in the marketing budget for that, and would it be money well spent?
In an interview with Mediaweek, Nine Radio head of content Greg Byrnes expressed confidence in Fegan and 3AW Melbourne Drive recruit Jackie Felgate:
Byrnes cited Felgate and Fegan in Brisbane as success stories, saying, “We elevate new talent when we know they have the skills, the passion, and the love for their community. It takes time for listeners to build habits, but once they do, those voices become part of their day.”
The pressure is on both Fegan and Felgate: him to spearhead a Lazarus-like comeback for the entire station, and her to keep 3AW’s established audience happy.
For Fegan, the challenge is huge.
The rule of thumb is that Breakfast sets the pace and should rate as high or better than the station average. That just isn’t happening. And I’m sure that fact hasn’t escaped the attention of 4BC’s other talent — including some who are better known in the market and, arguably, know the market better.
Fegan, who spent much of his journalism career working in Sydney (and carries some baggage from his time there), is quite probably better known to the Nine bosses in the Emerald City than to the radio audiences in Brisbane. Maybe they see something in him that can developed into a “success story”, but there’s no metric that sustains Byrnes’s narrative that he already is.
Along with others, I’ve been saying for years that the Brisbane audience is not what Nine Radio thinks it is or wants it to be.
The bosses in Sydney are operating on the premise that talk radio works best when it is conservative in nature.
Well, it’s one thing to be conservative in tone but desk-thumping shock-jockery won’t cut it here. And it’s difficult to be any kind of conservative commentator when there is a conservative city council and state government. There’s nowhere to direct the anger in a credible way.
(Kicking the Greens might seem like a good idea, but they have substantial electoral support from the very demographic 4BC needs as listeners. Also, they are not in power at any level.)
Meanwhile, if Nine happens to be looking around its stable for fresh talk-radio talent, I wonder if they’ve considered Paul Taylor, who helms the Gold Coast TV news and is currently reading Brisbane’s 6pm TV news bulletin as the Christmas fill-in for Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downes.
Taylor (pictured, above) has a professional but also slightly folksy delivery, a likeable demeanour and, I believe, some serious journalism chops and a strong background in radio.
P.S. I note that 4BC’sWide World of Sports show rated 1.2. No, I didn’t misplace a decimal point, it’s just a fraction over 1% of the available audience. As I’ve said many times before, the media constantly overestimates our interest in sport.
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz once worked at 4BC, when his suggestions to upper management about improving the station’s appeal to the Brisbane he knew were not on-boarded. He may be a malcontent whistling into the wind or a visionary. Only time will tell.
Note: This newsletter was corrected soon after publication to reflect the fact that Christmas programming on 4BC will not fully kick in to next week.